Maine Loggers Say Biomass Company Not Paying Bills

Loggers have cut off deliveries to a Maine biomass electricity generator because the company has stopped paying its bills, the head of an industry association said Tuesday. Dana Doran, executive director of the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine, said loggers who provide wood chips and other biomass fuel haven’t been paid by the company, Stored […]

Loggers have cut off deliveries to a Maine biomass electricity generator because the company has stopped paying its bills, the head of an industry association said Tuesday.

Dana Doran, executive director of the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine, said loggers who provide wood chips and other biomass fuel haven’t been paid by the company, Stored Solar, since mid-February. Generally, he said, the loggers are paid within seven to 10 days of making a delivery. He said the loggers, in response, are no longer delivering to the company, which has two generating sites in the state.

A spokesman for Central Maine Power, which has a contract to buy electricity from Stored Solar, said he hadn’t heard about the payment issue and couldn’t immediately comment on whether the utility is still getting electricity from Stored Solar, which is based in West Enfield.

William J. Harrington, one of the partners in Stored Solar, refused to comment when contacted by phone. “I’m not the press person, but thank you,” he said, and then hung up. A message left with Harrington after that initial contact wasn’t returned Tuesday afternoon.

Stored Solar and another biomass electricity producer, ReEnergy, share in a $13 million state subsidy that is supposed to help support the wood products industry in Maine by providing another buyer for wood grown in the state. Most of the rest is sold to the state’s dwindling number of paper plants or sawmills, Doran said, and the subsidy is supposed to keep the balance of buyers intact.

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